3. Offlify, a web blog about business, web applications and web design experience, calls Bitrix24 a free intranet platform with well-rounded collaborative tools, though lack of time management in a free plan is seen by reviewer as a weakness.

4. Like UncommonBusiness, Madconomist.com views Bitrix24 as alternative to WorkETC, Wiggio and Yammer. The reviews mention ability to have a choice between cloud version and self-hosted on premise version as a major advantage over competition.

David Portnoy’s Barstool Sports is the bible of bro culture. Rude, crude, sexist and often mean-spirited–even Howard Stern has complaints–the site has become a go-to for young men who say they are disenfranchised by the mainstream media. With legions of fans, Barstool is expanding its original content offerings and even eyeing a move into broadcasting. Is this take-no-prisoners style of entertainment the future? And can Portnoy continue to cash in on controversy?

Barstool Sports’ Blackout electronic dance music party is approaching critical mass, but the site’s founder, David Portnoy–the self-appointed El Presidente, aka The Mogul, aka Davey Pageviews–is unfazed by the controlled chaos erupting around him. Ignoring the entreaties of the capacity crowd assembled here at Boston’s House of Blues, Portnoy sits inside the club’s greenroom hunched over a borrowed laptop, his attention focused on blogging photos of a shirt-less fat guy in a Lucha Libre wrestling mask and cape, captured just moments ago at that night’s Boston Red Sox/Baltimore Orioles game and sent in by a member of Barstool’s rabid fan base.

An hour later, it’s showtime. Several junior members of the Barstool staff squeeze into ill-fitting, sweat-encrusted Smurfs and Star Wars costumes, arming themselves with confetti cannons, fire extinguishers and other tools of the Blackout trade. When they begin dancing and cavorting across the black-light-illuminated stage, the audience–teens and twentysomethings uniformly decked out in neon tank tops, surfer shorts and flip-flops–explodes in appreciation, uncorking the kinds of shrieks and shouts typically reserved for rock stars, not bloggers and interns.

Portnoy surveys the spectacle from offstage, then returns to the greenroom. The Blackout audience may want Pres, but it isn’t going to get him tonight. “I don’t even want to be here,” he grumbles. “I should be at home catching up on The Newsroom with a bowl of popcorn in my lap.” Instead he goes home and bangs out another blog, this one posted to the site just after 1 a.m.

Portnoy is a man who does what he wants, when he wants, and his haters-gonna-hate attitude, tireless work ethic and uncanny understanding of the elusive 18- to 35-year-old male demographic have built Barstool Sports from a weekly sports-betting-theme print publication distributed for free at Boston transit stops to a digital multimedia juggernaut: a wide-ranging, unabashedly profane men’s lifestyle blog bolstered by flourishing live events and merchandise businesses. A much-imitated, never-duplicated resource for the latest on sports, entertainment and women–the tent poles of the dude zeitgeist–the site is must-reading for a growing legion of high-profile male athletes and sports-media personalities, many of whom have appeared on the Barstool-produced online video series “The Bro Show” and podcast “KFC Radio,” hosted by blogger Kevin Clancy, who heads Barstool’s New York City efforts.

“If you polled all the players in the [National Hockey League], I’d say 25 percent of them read Barstool,” says San Jose Sharks all-star center Logan Couture, a “KFC Radio” guest in February. “I started reading it about five years ago. It made me laugh, and I’ve been reading it ever since.”

Here’s a little productivity tool that, if my information is correct, has been around for a decade: Bitrix24, or simply referred to as Bitrix. Bitrix24 is a productivity tool that combines a lot of functionalities you’d find in a CRM system, and adding a free intranet system for good measure.

The social intranet system that Bitrix24 has is akin to having your very own Facebook at work. You can leave instructions, view previous activities, leave comments and feedback, “Like” a certain activity, and whatnot; all the while maintaining the work aspect of the tool.

Here’s how the whole thing looks like.

From here you can see most of the functionalities that Bitrix offers. Right from the get-go, you are presented with its Facebook-ish look. From here, you can post a “status” the same way you would with Facebook, and tag appropriate members of the team you wish to be working on it; or simply would like informed.

Task creation is simple. Just click on the time at the top of the screen, and enter the task or event (such as a meeting) you wish.

Once the task is added, you can view the task and enter additional details, set reminders on it, or even delegate it to members of your team. While the task is being worked on, team members the task is assigned to can put comments; whether it is for progress on the task or for questions.

Either way, it beats standing up and going to another cubicle to ask a question. We are concerned about productivity here, after all.

When you are using Bitrix24 for the first time, each time you click on the menu, you will be presented with a short introduction and walkthrough as to how to use it. This makes Bitrix24 really easy to use despite its apparent complexity.

All in all, the free version of Bitrix24 supports 12 users, which isn’t bad. However, one thing to note of with the free version is that time tracking and management is not included.

Normally, it would be upon clicking the time at the top of the page where you can start clocking in. With the free version, though, you can only create a task or an event there.

Personally, I’d rather see a lower user count in the free version, say 6 or 8, and have the time management feature. Still, Bitrix24 is one of the more well-rounded collaborative tools out there, and I recommend you guys to check it out.

1. PickyDomains.com
OK, so we are touting our own horn here. But every marketing director had been in a situation where he or she could not come up with a cool domain, product name or slogan. PickyDomains is the only risk-free branding service that allows you to pay for brand ideas only if you like them enough to use. Shameless self-promotion mode off.

2. Bitrix24.com
Bitrix24 is an awesome free marketing tool, no matter if you are a CMO or a marketing consultant. By design, it’s a private social network and collaboration suite to be used inside marketing departments or digital agencies, as well as with clients (via extranet). But it can also be used as a free CRM or a free online project management solution. You pay only if you have more than 12 people in your marketing department, which covers 95% of companies and agencies I know of.

3. Trello.com
Trello is a free idea tracker and To Do list. While not as powerful as Bitrix24 (and lacking Android app), it’s a great task manager for small organizations that don’t like complex project management solutions, like BaseCamp. The paid version of Trello ($25/mo) supports Google Apps integration. If you like Kanban, you’ll love Trello.

4. Hootsuite.com
If you work with social media a lot, having Hootsuite is a must. Hootsuite allows you to automate (schedule) posting to social networks (Twitter, Facebook, G+, LinkedIn), get notified when your company or product is mentioned and ‘listen’ to certain conversations that you or your company might be interested in. A classic example of using Hootsuite would for a CRM consulting company to get notifications each time someone in LinkedIn or Twitter asks about which CRM is best for small business. (We use it to listen to conversations about naming and branding). Hootsuite is free when used solo with 5 social media profiles.

5. HelpAReporter.com
HARO is probably the best free PR tool out there. After all, where else are you going to find journalists from mainstream media asking YOU to give them information. Help A Reporter Out is designed to enable journalists to connect with people who have expertise or experience in particular issues, so that journalists can obtain tips, advice, feedback and quotes for stories they are covering. All yo uhave to do is to wait for an appropriate journalist request.

AceProjectwww.aceproject.com
Unlimited users on two projects for free? That’s a good deal, especially with the 250MB of free space and free time-tracking AceProject throws your way.
• Read PCMag’s review of AceProject.

AnyMeetinganymeeting.com
Set up a free account and you could soon be having Web conferences with anywhere from two to 200 people (ads pay for it). AnyMeeting offers email invites and video broadcasting, and it can display your presentations to others via screen sharing. The audio portion can go VoIP over the Web or via a conference call number AnyMeeting provides. You can also record everything for posterity (or blackmail).
• Read PCMag’s coverage of AnyMeeting.

Asanaasana.com
Individuals will find Asana to be a strong to-do list organizer; teams of up to 30 people will see it as a full project management app (you’ll pay $100/month for over 30). Thoughtful design, fluid interface elements, and room for plenty of users make it a powerful tool.
• Read PCMag’s review of Asana.

CanvasDroprwww.canvasdropr.com
This site allows collaboration among a team on just about anything. You create a “meeting room table” by dragging files of almost any time to the interface, which you can then move around and zoom in and out on. Team members (a max of five with the free version) can draw or write notes on the items on the table. You get three projects with 2GB of total storage for free.

Doodlewww.doodle.com
If you need a service just to schedule a meeting, visit Doodle. It will send out the invite with your suggested meeting times and then let others get back to you with a mutually agreeable spot on the calendar.
• Read PCMag’s review of Doodle.

Expensifywww.expensify.com
Expensify lets you track all your spending and receipts via a mobile app. The Web interface syncs with all the entries from the handheld and creates the reports you need to get paid back.

Grooptwww.groopt.com
Think of Groopt as project management for the non-business. With a Facebook-like interface for collaboration, it’s perfect for small groups of any kind, from families to neighbors to students. It has a special emphasis on fraternities and sororities. It supports full file sharing, tracking of what the group has done, communication tools, a group calendar, and even the ability to set up a Web storefront, though setting up a custom site will cost you.

LiveMinutesliveminutes.com
Most of us want to forget meetings; LiveMinutes wants to make themmemorable. It’s for meeting and working on things simultaneously, in real-time, with up to 20 people. The excellent interface makes it easy to share documents or videos, and annotate them; everything you do is recorded (even the audio) for a report that goes to everyone who attended.• Totally Free!

Meetings.iomeetings.io
If you can’t get people to sign up for Google+ Hangouts and they won’t install Skype, how can you video chat for a meeting? Flash-based Meetings.io doesn’t require an account (but it helps). Set up a meeting and mail out the invite to up to five attendees with your unique meeting URL. You can even embed a Meeting.io room on your webpage. Once inside, sharing documents and taking notes is part of the interface.• Totally Free!

Scribblarwww.scribblar.com
With Scribblar, you can jump into quick whiteboarding with multiple users. Sign up, create a “room,” send invites, and you’re off and running. Make it public or private. The board itself has all the usual tools for making objects or text boxes and you can change the properties of all of them after they’re drawn, even if they were drawn by someone else in the room.

Vyewvyew.com
Vyew lets you create online meeting spaces (up to 20) that are always active for sharing and annotating content. You can video chat with up to 10 people and ads cover your cost.

Wedoistwedoist.com
The makers of the Todoist online task manager for individuals built Wedoist for team projects. Sign up is fast. So is inviting others to work on projects you create. (You can have a team of three for free.) You share updates in an interface like a Facebook wall, but with the option to upload attachments, add tasks for the group, assign tasks to individuals on the team, and chat with those who are online. It keeps a full, searchable history of what you have accomplished as you go.

WeWorkedweworked.com
Need free online timesheets with up to 25 users accounts for an unlimited number of projects? That’s what WeWorked provides (with some premium extras). For no cost, you can track balances and get approvals and reminders. Plus, it’s all kept secure online for access anywhere.